Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Anarchist Knight Journeyman: Chapter 26

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Chapter 26 Journeyman

“You claim to add your light with ours, but you have only led us further into darkness and danger, making our entire community more vulnerable. How will you defend us in our weakness?”

Once more Tobal had no reply, and his guide remained silent. He was led roughly to the center of the circle and held pinned between two hooded guards.

The High Priest continued. “The Apprentice degree is of spiritual protection and growth. In your progress through that degree, you have been magickally protected from evil influences that might have otherwise entered your life. Then, as a member of our sacred circle, you will always have protection from the evil of the outside world, but we can never shield you from the evil within your own nature and within each one of us. You must learn to master this evil—the weakness and fear that prevents you from acting when needed, and that drives blind, destructive choices. This is the work of the Journeyman. You must combat these inner demons with your own Inner Light, or they will become your masters. Only when you have mastered your own inner demons will you have truly earned the right to this degree—a lifetime work we all face. Symbolically, this inner battle is marked by success in defeating six members of this degree in combat. After defeating six members, you will be considered eligible for the 3rd and final degree of Master that leads to citizenship. Are you ready to continue?”

“Yes.”

“Then let the fight begin!”

Six dark hooded figures stepped forth from the circle and stood in menacing silence as the High Priest, High Priestess, and the two guards moved away. His guide took his torch and left him alone within the circle. Tobal stood silently in confusion, pain exploding in his side as a fist connected, the torchlight blurring his vision.

Gradually, he realized he was expected to fight all six figures. He pulled himself into a fighting stance and began circling defensively. None moved. He circled closer to one, feinting with his right—the figure stayed still. Encouraged, Tobal struck lightly on the shoulder and doubled over as a savage punch to his belly knocked him to the cave floor, fighting nausea. Struggling up, he faced the unmoving six, unsure. He lunged at a second, his thrust parried as a hard blow slammed his head, sparking stars. Rising again, rage built, and he grappled a third, only to find it stone-solid. A crushing bear hug bruised his ribs before he was thrown, wind knocked out, refusing to rise, sobbing in frustration.

“He refuses to fight!” a voice cried from the circle’s edge.

“Yes, he refuses to fight!” murmured the hooded figures, moving silently widdershins. After one circle, drums pounded eerily within the cave as black-cloaked figures drew near, striking light, stinging blows. Tobal couldn’t see their faces or recognize them.

The energy felt wrong, building. Fear and panic gripped him at his tailbone, climbing his spine, his energy slipping counterclockwise. What were they doing? The energy grew, strange and dark, not evil but dangerous.

The High Priest placed his hands on Tobal’s head, his voice echoing. “In the name of the Lord and Lady, I draw the dark energy of the earth up into your physical body and soul that you might become master of yourself and Journeyman.”

Tobal felt a weird tingling and warmth as a glowing yellow-green energy pooled at his feet, rising through his body, exiting his head into spiritual light. His father’s spirit entered, looking out. “You have done well,” said his father. “We will wait for you.”

The High Priestess stepped forward, Tobal recognizing Misty. “In the name of the Lord and Lady, I draw the dark energy of the earth into your physical body and soul that you might become a master of yourself and Journeyman.”

A darker, threatening energy carried frightening images—a feminine Goddess force curling around his legs, tendrils choking his throat, filling his mind like a giant tree of life and death reaching for the spiritual sun. A surge of warmth flooded him, easing the pain.

Then his heart ached as his mother’s spirit held him, her aura protecting. She left with a kiss and a whispered “be strong.” He felt his father holding her hand, their love for each other and him, rejoicing as the energy sank into his bones, changing him forever. Their touch echoed the cave’s astral warmth, a bridge between circle and spirit.

The High Priest continued. “Are you ready to receive wisdom and be nourished by life?”

“Yes,” Tobal mumbled through a split lip. He was helped to his feet.

“The first and most important lesson is that there are times in life when you must fight for what you believe and times not to fight. Learn to choose your battles, and if you fight, fight to win, giving all you have. You will be respected even if defeated, as must sometimes happen. There is no shame in losing a battle. There is shame in not giving all you have.”

“The second lesson,” he continued, “is that fighting is hard and thirsty work!”

“Let’s party!”

As the energy settled, the High Priest’s voice softened, shifting the ritual’s tone. A throaty welcome echoed in the cavern as hoods were thrown back, and Tobal was half-dragged, half-carried into another chamber where food and drink awaited. Goodwill filled the air as he was hugged and congratulated by familiar faces he hadn’t seen in ages.

Rafe pounded his back, laughing as Tobal winced. “Thought you would never get here!” he shouted over the crowd.

Ellen gave him a hug and a kiss.

Tobal stayed a few days, exploring caverns and chatting with 2nd-degree peers. He retrieved his parents’ items, feeling better wearing them again, catching up on their news.

After a few days, his trail food dwindled, and restlessness grew. On the third day, he set out alone to process the initiation’s meaning, bidding farewell to his new brothers and sisters, heading to base camp.

His black tunic felt strange after gray, the shift from a year of intense living and training to idleness jarring. Time dragged, and he dreaded his first fight a month away. Worry gnawed at him—his parents might still be wired to a machine on life support. He preferred Crow’s view of them as the Lord and Lady.

The midsummer celebration at circle was a welcome change. Hot, fair weather made him miss newbie training. As a new Journeyman, his first duty was guarding Apprentice initiations, expected and unsurprising. He arrived early, donned black robes, and stayed on duty until the last newbie was initiated late that night—a long day missing Becca and circle.

Though absent, he heard the news: Sarah, Anne, Derdre, Seth, and Crow’s newbies soloed with Elder approval. Tyrone, Zee, Kevin, and Butch initiated newbies, expected after a month’s wait. The surprise was ten initiates—Becca and Fiona not only initiated but soloed theirs, earning fifth chevrons. Nikki earned her fourth but wasn’t there; Tara and Nick likely waited at Sanctuary.

Becca gave him a brief kiss and hug at the guard post, sharing Rafe’s Council of Elders role. Glowing, she promised, “We’ll talk later,” holding him close before seeking Fiona, who’d already dropped her newbie.

Nikki lost out, still waiting at Sanctuary with others. Mike and another Apprentice quit, hitting Butch hard due to their friendship.

After initiations, Tobal entered the circle in black robes. Friends congratulated him but some eyed him differently. “I’m still the same person,” he thought, then realized he wasn’t. Most friends were Apprentices; Masters like Rafe and Ellen were exceptions. Newbies didn’t know him, and black-robed peers kept to themselves. He hoped to stay connected to Apprentices.

Heading for the beer barrel, he met gloomy Wayne and Char, considering quitting. “Why don’t you talk to Crow first?” he suggested. “He’s taking a group to the village. I visited last month—it’s neat.” Char doubted a primitive life but nodded for a vacation. Wayne agreed, hoping the newbie bottleneck eased, frustrated by month-long waits. They hugged, seeing it as a chance to reconnect.

Tobal hoped he hadn’t erred suggesting the village, liking their simplicity. He moved on, finding Becca and Fiona by the drum circle, high-spirited. They partied, planning a month off awaiting official solos and sixth chevrons. Tobal proposed a lake trip for swimming and berries, ready for a break. They agreed, shifting topics. Fiona asked, “What have we missed about the City Council and village? We’ve been busy.”

“Lots to catch up on,” he laughed. “Let’s find out.”

“Where’s Llana?” Becca asked.

“That’s part of it,” he smiled, kissing her. She didn’t press.

They joined Rafe and Ellen. Becca’s presence felt good; he squeezed her hand, she smiled. Crow’s group discussed teleportation—Char and Wayne listened. Tobal stayed with his group, needing their talk.

Ellen started, “We finally met with the City Council. It’s been a rough month; our lives are changed.”

“An understatement,” Rafe nodded. “Our world’s upside down.”

Ellen continued, “The Council cleaned house—new members, none at the last meeting. The mayor apologized again for the assassination attempt, relieved Howling Wolf’s safe. New members knew and respected him, explaining their selection. Once a clansman, always a clansman—all had done Sanctuary, many served the Elders. The mayor assured full support.”

“This time, General Grant was absent. The Council requested a Federation internal affairs probe but heard nothing. Grant denied Howling Wolf’s claims; the Council believed Wolf, deeming Grant a liar, so he wasn’t invited.”

Ellen smiled at Tobal. “Howling Wolf appeared, offering teleport and time travel skills if the city split from the military project. He rejected the machine’s dangers and inhuman wiring, demanding Ron and Rachel Kane’s release for peace after years of torment.”

“Things got interesting,” Ellen said. “Wolf vanished; Adam Gardner appeared with a pack, introducing items—mostly past, some future—confirming his work with Wolf on Kane’s research and ongoing time explorations.”

“We were impressed,” Ellen chuckled. “The Council sought proof of training. Llana appeared, revealing plans for a secret time traveler group.”

“My COM buzzed—medics were evicted from the mountain, losing the ER and supplies. Grant barred us, even from belongings. The Council, shocked, with Wolf’s approval, made the village a temporary base until a new site by the lake.”

“We chose the old gathering spot for a permanent base, requesting supplies and comms. The City Council voted and agreed to provide immediate provisions for uninterrupted medic work, directing serious cases to the city. They’ll build modern facilities for winter use.”

“Most of us hauled supplies that first week,” Rafe grumbled. “No rogue attacks noted. We’re settled, trained now at Heliopolis hospital.”

“I leave for months, and it falls apart,” Becca quipped. “Danger from Grant’s rogues?”

“No way to know,” Ellen said. “We hope the investigation curbs worse.”

The meeting sparked thoughts. Becca’s questions persisted post-bed; kissing silenced her, leading to delays before sleep in each other’s arms.

Being with Becca, free of duties, felt good. With two weeks before Journeyman circle, they maximized it. Mid-June’s perfect weather brought Fiona, and they headed to the lake, first meeting Llana at Tobal’s winter base en route.

Evening, Llana greeted the campfire. Becca and Fiona, updated, joined Tobal’s group—Rafe, Ellen, Tobal, Becca, Fiona, possibly Nikki (unasked). Tobal eyed Tyrone; Fiona suggested Butch. Newbie training clashed with Llana’s lessons, delaying theirs until Journeyman.

“Tobal’s done two months with Crow, one with me,” Llana told them. “He’s ahead, can help you catch up. I’ll teach him, he’ll teach you. Practice daily, support each other.”

“What about Ellen and Rafe?” Tobal asked.

“I’ll teach them individually,” she said.

Tobal nodded, “Rafe wants you to scout forbidden areas on his air sled map. Drop you off, you teleport out. No med-alert, no monitor.”

Llana thought. “Good. Tell him to meet me at my old base, two days post-new moon, noon. See if Ellen joins. I’ll train them, plan further.”

“Have you time traveled?” Becca asked.

“Once,” Llana smiled. “Awesome, frightening, like teleporting once mastered. Grandfather and Adam check areas for safety, gauging Grant’s time meddling.”

“How soon?” Becca pressed.

“A year to two, depending on training intensity and aptitude. We want both groups ready together to collaborate.”

“What’s Crow’s group doing?” Fiona asked.

“They’ll exit Sanctuary, ditch bracelets, train off-grid like us, likely faster since we juggle Journeyman duties. No contact until all teleport.”

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 160- 164

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Our entrance attracted noisy attention. Immediately they
dragged Görg to the table and quickly brewed a mixture in a
mug of beer, wine, spit and pipe juice, which he had to empty
immediately as a toast to the well-being of the four senses. But
me they mockingly addressed as “Your Honor” and asked if I
did not know that one has to make three bows and a scrape of
the foot when entering, such an illustrious group or if the fine
gentleman felt like a few passes with the rapier. This I could
have in a moment.
“Are you still acting so wild, Bavarian Haymon?” I asked
and had to smile wistfully, when I recognized my old Order
brother.
He sat there with his mouth open, as if he had been
struck by a blow.
“I know you well,” I said, stepping close to him. “Even if
time has run away!”
“Pinch me, Hoibusch, pinch me!” he sputtered and
nudged the student next to him. “A ghost stands before me-“
“Ei, what, a ghost!” said I. “its Mahomet and no other!”
Something like a pathetic joy was in me, that I saw him
again, although degenerated and aged before his time. And on
the lapels of his skimpy coat he still wore the letters of our
secret slogan, artfully entwined from silver wire:
“Vivat circulus fratrum amicitiae!”
Long live the brotherly circle of the Order of Friendship.
I pointed with my finger and said smilingly:
“Vivat, crescat, floreat!”
Then he jumped up on both feet and shouted:
“Murderous hail of bombs! Stinking foxes, kneel down!
An old Amiciste stands before you, Mahomet, who has wiped
more blood from his thrusting blade than runs in your sour
veins. O brother of heart! What a race has taken our place!
Drinking from little cups, crying for their mothers when they
run out of veal…and run into the lecture hall with their pens
and notebooks. -O the old times! O Amicitial!”
He threw his long arms around me, kissed me
resoundingly on both cheeks, and the tears trickled from his
inflamed eyes.
“And now here, by my green side, Herr Brother, and that
none open their mouth till Mahomet has told us about the best
of his famous life experiences – Hey, Ball Mill Innkeeper, hey,
Bärbel, jump and swing and bring as much wine as the table
can bear. And the farmer shall join in the drinking!”
But he had gone out and was no longer to be seen.
The innkeeper now approached the table very politely
and asked what we wanted. I looked at him with a certain
horror. In his one eye was a false squint, the other lay as a
white, blind glass ball between slitted eyelids. A fiery red cut
scar, shaped like an ‘S’, ran across the bald skull, eye and the
cheek, to the fat double chin. I knew that murderers marked
traitors with such a cruel mark.
Soon there were large bowls of venison on the table
along with flagons of wine on the table, and a wild carousing
began, in which I participated with caution. My heart was
loaded with feelings that had nothing to do with those of the
people at the table, and I had enough to answer Haymon’s
questions. The three others were listening quite modestly and
the girl looked at us like a cow at a new gate.
When the candles had burned down and Haymon’s
tongue grew heavier and heavier, I first learned how his life
had turned out, how, when all his parents’ property was gone,
he had to be glad to be able to crawl under somewhere as a
town clerk. And that was also the end since his hand was so
shaky from the continued drunkenness that his squiggles were
no longer legible. Now he had set out to find one of his former
tenants who had become rich, from whom he thought he could
still claim something, however little it was, and while
wandering he had met the three students today and continued
together on the path with them. After a long wandering back
and forth in the wild forest they had found the lonely Ball Mill
about two hours before I arrived with Görg, and were glad to
find a roof for the night, even more so, as a whizzing west
wind brought up ever wilder clouds and the earth smelled of
rain.
Now, however, the many wines had won Bavarian
Haymon’s heart completely and utterly, and with many gulps,
belches and weeping he could not do enough to remember
those wild times full of youthful foolishness and exuberance in
the magical false light of memory, keeping the good and the
pleasant, but completely forgetting the excess of adversity and
bitter worries. And after each sentence he spoke, he let a new
cup trickle down his skinny, knitted neck, while the three
young students only dared to talk quietly in a whisper so as not
to interrupt the dialogue of their mossy superior. I was hurting
enough. Friendship and youth were gone.
“Strike and heavy death, Herr Brother!” He cried out one
more time, “What kind of guys we were! Do you still
remember the same night, how tall Heilsbronner gave up the
ghost in the road dirt? How the brave Montanus emptied the
glass boot into his gullet for the last time? O brother, Finch has
also perished, drowned in the Murg, and the Portugieser has
rotted alive in the Spittel in Erlangen, so badly did the Dancing
Lily, with whom he had lived, make such a mess of him. And
Wechler, I don’t know if you would still know him, has become
a cathedral lord and no longer acknowledges me. O vanitas,
vanitatum vanitas! Gone are all the oaths and brotherly love!
Hey, Bärbel! Where is that bitch in heat? Give me some light!
Are we to remain in this hellish darkness? The three vixens
have enough money to pay for several candles!”
Then the innkeeper came out from behind the tiled stove,
where he had been lurking without our knowledge and said
rudely and hoarsely that it was bedtime, and new candles had
to be fetched from afar. Only a stump remained, and that was
just enough to find the sleeping room.
One of the young boys wanted to say something but
another one next to him, a quiet, nice boy who, as I had
observed the whole time, had drunk almost nothing and was
quite sober quickly nudged him and said softly, but in such a
way that I could hear it:
“Quiet, Hans! We may yet need your candles!”
The lout of a landlord without further ado took the last
candle, which was barely enough for a quarter of an hour, from
the table and mumbled, “Now whoever wants to sleep, let him
follow me. Who does not like it can squat in the dark room.
Nothing more will be poured out!”
Haymon wanted to stay, but I quickly took him under the
arm, and so we went behind the innkeeper and his big dog to
find our resting place.
We walked through a long corridor with several thick,
dusty or boarded-up windows. Haymon’s intoxication came out
as we walked, and I heard him say something about a
goddamned town piper, who he wanted to wipe out.
Meanwhile I remembered that the farmer was not with us.
“Where is my driver?” I asked the innkeeper, whose giant
shadow slid along the wall.
“Rehwang?” he grumbled, half looking around. “He’s
long since gone home with his harness.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I was annoyed. “What
shall I do tomorrow?”
The hulking fellow stopped in front of a door and
shrugged his shoulders.
“If the gentleman had drunk less and had paid attention
to Rehwang, he could easily have kept him here. It’s not my job
to care about such things.”
He threw a sidelong glance with his one-eye at me.
“And who knows if tomorrow will be so urgent.”
I kept silent, and he pushed open a wooden door with his
foot, holding his hand in front of the stump in the tin
candelabra.
We entered and found ourselves in a large, completely
empty hall, which had probably once been the pouring floor. In
the middle of the room stood, oddly enough, a thick, round
column, which supported the main beam of the ceiling on a
wide annulus. Star-shaped around this column were five berths,
better than we had thought. On clean, fresh straw were coarse,
but white sheets laid down, hard against the pillar there was a
head cushion for everyone, and five thick red-woolen blankets
were spread out for covering.
“We don’t have any better than this in the Ball Mill,” said
the innkeeper, as if embarrassed.
“The gentlemen must make do.”
We testified that we were satisfied, and so he, smiling
and bending down, put the burning light on a stool, showed us
the little luggage that was ours, and under the evil growl of his
mutt, wished us a good night. We heard him shuffle away
through the hallway and then throw the heavy front door shut,
sliding the bar and locking it with the turning of a key.
The two who had led Haymon so far now let him slide
gently onto one of the beds, and it was not two minutes before
he began to snore and mumble meaningless words, which the
wine had given him. A frightening restlessness was in me, and
some dark foreboding lay warningly and heavy in the pit of my
stomach. I took the light and looked around. Sooty cobwebs
hung like banners of mourning from the old beams of the
ceiling; the three small windows with their blinded, lead-lined
bull’s-eye panes could not be opened. A choking musty cellar
odor brooded in the wide room with the column. The wide ring
it wore at the top had recently been whitewashed, so that it
stood out glaringly against the lurid ceiling.
When I turned around, I saw that my feelings were
shared by the three students. None of them made any
preparations to visit the tempting beds or to put their swords
away.
“It smells like old blood in here,” said the bright-eyed
Hoibusch, who had already impressed me with his sobriety and
calmness at the table.
Also Hans Garnitter, who was lighting the candles said,
“This is where the devil is supposed to spend the night!” and
the third, a young gentleman of Sollengau, who gradually
became free of the wine spirits, nodded apprehensively.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 155- 159

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I jumped up from the table. As if in a bright light, for a
small moment I saw the connections of all the mysteries of my
life. But quickly enveloping veils descended on an image that
was not accessible to my ordinary senses.
“May I make a great request?” I asked.
“If it is in my power to grant it.”
“Lead me to the dying man,” I asked.
“So come,” said the priest.
We went quickly to the little cottage at the end of the
village. A reddish light pressed through the tiny, dim windows.
We heard many people murmuring, and when we entered the
low room, we saw several men and women kneeling in prayer.
In a meager bed lay an old man. His small, shriveled face
stood out from a blue pillow and was surrounded by the glow
of the dying candle burning at his head.
We approached his bed. The heavy eyes were glazed, his
mouth was open.
I saw at once that this man, in his distress would no
longer be able to answer the questions that were burning on my
lips.
Then something incomprehensible happened.
Slowly, the staring eyes turned and looked toward me. In
the face already marked by the paralyzing finger of death, there
was a faint movement, a joyful smile played around the thin,
sunken lips, and before we knew what was going on in the
dying man, his upper body rose, his haggard arms stretched out
toward me, and almost sobbing, the thin old man’s voice came
from out of his mouth:
“So you have come after all — at last!”
Radiant joy flamed in his eyes, then his head fell back
into the pillows, a gray shadow ran over his mouth and nose,
his body stretched so that the bedstead creaked.
The clergyman stepped in and closed the eyelids with his
hand.
“Rest now, thou faithful servant,” he said softly. “Let us
pray!”
We said the Lord’s Prayer, and as we left the parlor, I felt
everyone’s eyes on me.
The deceased believed he had seen his friend, Ewli, in
me.
The clergyman did not speak a word. When we were
back in his comfortable room, he looked at me with uneasy
eyes.
“It must have been the scar,” he said to himself.
“What scar?” I asked in amazement.
“The red scar that is between your eyebrows, Baron
Dronte. – No, no!” he cried suddenly. “Further brooding over
these things would be called trying God! – If it is convenient
for you I will show you your bedroom!”
I bowed my thanks and went with him.
When we were standing in the room I had been given, he
took me by the shoulders with both hands and looked me in the
face for a long time.
“Forgive me for my rude confusion!” he then said. “But I,
an old man, have experienced too many incomprehensible and
disturbing things. I myself am not able to solve the terrible
riddles of providence. I want to be alone. Please don’t be angry
with me. I need to flee from the confusion of these mysterious
incidents to a safe haven! In the faith in Him, who directs
everything according to His high will, and in the peace of
prayer.”
“Pray for me, too, Reverend Herr”, I asked with emotion.
Then I was alone. And restlessly I groped with the
feeling that the mind was not able to bring me any help, to find
the little portal within the dark wall that would lead to the truth.
But here and there, in the sleepless night, appeared a faint
glimmer of foreboding – I could not grasp anything of that,
which in the deepest and darkest depths of my soul approached.
A farmer, whom I had taken into my service with his
team and asked for the most stately building in the entire area,
assured me that it was Krottenriede Castle. But the road that
led there was a two day journey through a thick forest and a
horrible moor and was by no means safe. Not too long ago the
Spillermaxe gang had lain in wait in the Damned Quarry and in
Klosterholz near the road, and the poachers were not doing too
well either, and seldom gathered together, for example, to hunt
a more spirited game than a deer or roebuck.
Also the priest, whom I clearly saw had kept watch
through the night, warned me of the vast forest, where it was
not safe. When I had made up my mind to leave, he took his
leave visibly moved and commended me to the blessing of God,
who would protect me from the false arts and deceitfulness of
Satan. For after careful reflection he could not believe that God
would want to use a Mohammedan monk or dervish to help a
believing Christian, whom he recognized me to be.
I thanked him for the night’s lodging and the food and
urged the farmer, whose name was Görg Rehwang, to hurry,
since I had every reason to fear that the little courage the man
had would evaporate before the journey began. After I made
sure that the mail coach driver would be able to travel home in
the course of the day and was quite well, we drove into the
middle of the forest.
By the crouched neck and the shy side glances, which
Rehwang did to the right and left, I soon realized that his heart
was in his pants, and it was not long before he half turned
around and asked with a cheese-white face:
“”Didn’t you hear something, Herr?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“To the right hand someone has made a whistle or I shall
not be blessed!” he whispered, scratching his furry hair.
But nothing happened. It might have been a wild bird.
Then, however, when we reached a marshy area of heath
he began to talk about the inn, in which we were to find
accommodation for one night and which was called “The Ball
Mill”.
“Supposedly there were many a man there with heavy
stones on their feet, without clothes and possessions, in the
depths of the black moor waters, to the delight of crayfish,
water beetles and eels.” he babbled, his teeth chattering.
“Lord, how about we turn the foreheads of our nags to
where we came from?”
I gave him no answer, and so he drove on with a deep
sigh. The area was gloomy and sad. Between shimmering pools
stood ancient and gnarled trees, covered with warts and goiters.
Dead trunks and those peeled by lightning desperately spread
their twisted serpentine arms. On water covered with a skin of
thick green slime, lurked crippled willows, on which hungry
crows squatted. Trunks and branches were whitewashed with
the droppings of the resting birds. Sometimes a duck would
rise out of the reeds with a whistle and beating wings. Very
distant, mournful notes from a flute purred in the wind, and
gray misty women dragged their dripping gowns through the
treetops.
“Here it’s called the Damned Quarry”, the farmer began
again. “And the path there, between the young birches, leads to
the Ball Mill, where we can spend the night.”
But it went on for a long time, until we arrived in front of
the dark gray and unfriendly building. Large, stone balls, green
with moss, eaten by rain and snow lay next to the door, and a
moldy soft spot still showed where the dammed waters of the
moor brook had driven the mill, which had long since become
an inn.
The farmer got off the wagon with a crooked back and
shouted a few times:
“Hey there, the inn!”
But nothing moved, yet we thought we heard wild
singing coming through the greenish windows behind the
strong square bars. After long shouting the host finally
appeared with a huge black and white spotted dog, whose dull,
raw face was not unlike that of a man. The broad-shouldered
man, who had an excessively long knife sticking out of his fat
leather pants, looked at us unkindly enough and grunted:
“Hoho, Rehwang, what do you bring us there for a
distinguished gentlemen?”
“The gentleman has a long way to go,” the farmer
apologized. “And so goes inquiry on account of the night’s
lodging.”
“Still don’t know the household custom, you living cow
patty?” the rude host dug at poor Görg Rehwang. “And if the
emperor and the pope and all the electors and as far as I’m
concerned, also the empress and the archbishop’s bed warmer
come riding and driven, there is nothing else in the Ball Mill
but a bundle of straw in the large room. – The Herr can do with
it as he pleases!” he said with a treacherous look at me.
Behind him, pointy-nosed, shabby and rattle-thin like the
forest crows on the garbage heap by the building, suddenly
stood, as if grown from the earth, the landlady who smiled
wryly and said:
“If it is convenient for the Herr he is welcome! While
there is nothing but a poor man’s bed, we have good wine and a
company in the house, where there is a great deal of fun.”
“There is no lack of wine,” the innkeeper in the woollen
doublet interjected much more friendly. “I just wanted to warn
the gentleman that he does not expect anything fine from us
and does not beat the wheel in disgust at the burping and
farting of the sleeping companions around him.”
I did not reply to the coarse lout’s rude speeches and
entered the house. Roaring laughter and shouting rang out to
me from the tavern when I opened the door, and stinging pipe
smoke billowed out in clouds.
At the long table, above which was an elaborately carved
in wood, six-horse carriage with all the accessories hung in toy
size, also burned six or seven candles in tin lanterns. Three
students sat at it, their long swords strapped around them, their
sleeves pinned up, drinking Runda. With them was a tree-tall,
gaunt fellow with a bald skull and a fiery red vulture nose,
dressed in a scuffed black robe, who held a cheeky brown-
skinned woman on his lap, with his hand waving a yellow neck
cloth in the air. The black-eyed woman laughed in such a way
that her exposed breasts trembled, and she pinched the old beau
in his drunkard’s nose, so that he cried out loudly and let her go.

Read Full Post »

Order of Anarchist Knights

Posted in Uncategorized on January 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 150- 154

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I assured the spiritual gentleman most eagerly that I had
seen the aforementioned man from afar several times in my life,
but that I had never spoken a word to him.
The priest looked at me and shook his head.
“So the experience is now again a miracle and in need of
some explanation. Namely, when the old woman and the tailor
went their way with the brushwood and I was alone with the
stranger in the brown robe and eye to eye with him, I felt the
natural desire to learn from him something about his origin and
the destination of his journey. Moreover, there was in his look
and in the truly noble features of his face such a strong
attraction that it was impossible for me to keep my eyes off
him. That he was from the Orient, I recognized easily by his
appearance. And since I had once learned the Arabic language
years ago, I dared to use this language and the solemn greeting
‘Salem aleikum!’, that is: Peace be with you!”
And in this tongue the stranger exceedingly kindly and
sweetly gave this beautiful blessing back to me and added:
“When the sun sets for the third time, a man will appear in this
place who is looking for me. Call him your guest!”
And when I agreed to this, moved by a peculiar emotion,
and added the question of where I should direct the newcomer,
he only answered:
“To the big house at the end of the forest.”
With that he bowed his head with a beautiful gesture and
went to the forest, from which Nenin had fetched her
brushwood. But no sooner had the first bushes covered him,
when it occurred to me that there could be many of them,
especially if locks are also included. And then I ran after him,
in order to get more details out of him. But no matter how I
searched and called, I could find no trace of him. Certainly he
had gone his way with quicker steps than I had suspected, and
disappeared from my sight. I also confess that this experience
had upset me so much that I can no longer say today how long
I stood in thought while he walked away from me. This makes
it easy to explain his disappearance without the assumption of a
supernatural event.
After these words, silence descended upon us, and we sat
for a long time, each occupied with his own thoughts. That
which I would have liked to say, I had to keep to myself.
Nothing could have moved me to reveal to another, even if he
might be as worthy and as trustworthy as this priest, the dark
and hidden ways of my life. And that is what I would have had
to explain to him, even casually, my inexplicable connection to
Ewli. But was there an explanation at all? Was it not rather that
by the last appearance of the miracle man everything had only
become more confused and unclear?
Unless, and this thought seized me with penetrating force,
that the friend of my childhood, now that old age had taken me
in its weary arms, considered that the time had come to reveal
himself to me. Then, of course the appearance at the baker’s,
the broken wagon wheel, the Arabic-speaking priest were clear,
even if unusual signposts to that place, to the “great house”,
where at last the inexplicable and incomprehensible things in
my life would find an explanation of some kind.
“Well – in any case, it is good not to forget the arts
practiced in younger years,” my host interrupted my thoughts.
“And so I am glad that for once in this life I have unexpectedly
and strangely used my knowledge of Arabic!
“I wish, reverend Herr, that I had been in your place, and
skilled in the same language, to be able to speak with Ewli.”
Hastily, the clergyman put the pipe down on the table and
looked me in the face with an almost frightened look and
repeated:
“Ewli? How do you come up with that word?”
I saw that now, after all, I had to share somewhat of the
role that the man from the East had played in my life, and I told
him in short words about the incident in my earliest childhood,
with the little wax man under the glass and the collapsing
ceiling above my shell bed, and how the figurine disappeared
in this accident and was never found and how he was always
called “The Oriental or Ewli” without my knowing what this
last word meant.
The priest drummed his fingers on the table, shook his
head several times as if to deny a thought that was trying to
emerge, and at last he only managed to utter only one word:
“Mysterium!”
“Whether the word Ewli implies a name or a
characteristic I do not know. It comes from my grandfather,
who brought the rarity back from the lakeside city of Venice
and held it in high esteem. When I was a child, there was –“
With great, hitherto unseen vivacity, my host interrupted
me:
“So listen then, Baron Dronte, how divine providence
often intervenes in human life and how, according to the will of
the Most High, people must find each other and have to
communicate with each other, that no coincidence, as it is
called, could ever bring to light. Today, when I made the
necessary arrangements for your reception, I was called to a
dying man, named Milan Bogdan, a very elderly cottager, who
had been an Austrian soldier and who had been given his
severance pay and had come here many years ago with this and
a few guilders he had saved. He stayed, got married and had a
small sprite which he had obtained, perhaps from the eternal
gardens of God. This old Croatian imperial soldier was a good
and righteous man and, moreover, a good Catholic Christian, in
whom it was my pleasure to visit not only for the sake of his
faith, but also for his diligence and his peaceableness. He has
been lying for a long time, and as often as the barber has
drained the water from him, it rises to his heart again and
brings danger of death. That’s why Bogdan had already
received the last sacraments two days ago with much devotion.
And so I was surprised that he hurriedly asked for me today.
But I went to him without hesitation, and when I saw that he
had sent his old wife and his two sons out of the room I said
that this was not necessary, since he had a clean account with
the good Lord and that a new confession was certainly not
necessary. But he fiercely insisted on his will, and so they left
him alone with me, and I sat down at his bedside.
“What else is troubling you, dear son?” I asked.
“Nothing is distressing me – nothing, reverend,” he said
with a heavy heart. “My sins are forgiven. And yet I cannot
sleep quietly in God’s bosom until a pious and learned man
explains to me an event that happened to me when I was a
soldier and which I think about now more than ever.”
So I challenged him to talk unabashedly, and then he
explained something to me, which I share with you, Baron
Dronte, as something that is not under the seal of confession
and, above all, a strange fact, especially for you.
Bogdan was thus abducted as a young infantryman in a
battalion on the Turkish border during a skirmish on the Sow,
as the river flowing into the Danube is called, by wild
Bashibozuks. In Turkish captivity he had to do hard work in a
treadmill that irrigated the fields of a mountain. Apart from the
work, he was not badly off, and was allowed to move freely in
the small town of his imprisonment. Thus he met a young Turk
of great beauty, but with a mark between his eyebrows, who
took very kindly care of the poor prisoner and did him a lot of
good without any reward. But as it often happens in the
unsanitary regions there, Bogdan came down with the heavy
misery or blood dysentery so that he became more miserable
and weaker and could no longer eat any food. The young Turk
cared for him faithfully and showed a lot of sorrow, often
asking Bogdan whether he could be allowed to grant him a
wish. And when it came to the last and Bogdan could hardly
speak any more for weakness, he smiled and said to the Turk:
“As bad as I am, brother, I could be helped if I could
drink from the colored glass that stands on my mother’s table,
from the plum brandy which is in our cellar in Zagreb.”
Then the Turk went out the door. Bogdan became weaker
and weaker, and he gave his soul to God. When not an hour
had passed, the Turk entered the door again and carried in his
hand the glass painted with colorful flowers which Bogdan’s
mother had filled with strong plum brandy and held it to the
lips of the sick man. He drank and fell into a deep sleep. When
he awoke, he asked for his savior. But no one seemed to know
anything about him. In his dilemma he called Hodja, the
Mohammedan priest, and told him what had happened to him
and how strange it was that the Turk had traveled so many
miles there and back in an hour. Then Hodja said:
“Know that your friend was an Ewli. One who has died
and came back. Good to you, that you have a guide through the
kingdom of Death!”
Bogdan recovered and in an exchange of prisoners came
back to his homeland. And there his mother told him that on
the day of his recovery, a stranger knocked on her door and
asked for the colored glass and brandy. And without
understanding she gave him both, and after a short time there
was another knock at the window, the stranger stood and
pushed the empty glass back to her and spoke:
“Rejoice, mother, your son returns!”
And so it happened. – This, Baron Dronte, is what the
dying soldier told me this afternoon and asked me if it was a
sin that in the hour of his death he had thought so much on
Ewli, his face and the red mark between his eyebrows.
I replied that he should rather turn his thoughts to the
Lord Jesus. He was doing this with all his might, was Bogdan’s
answer, but the face of the Lord Jesus in his thoughts without
his intervention took on the features of Ewli. I saw that the
poor man was in agony of conscience, and yet he could not
master this image. I comforted him and said that it was up to
the Lord and Savior alone to decide in which form he would
show himself to him. Then Bogdan smiled and said that it was
now easy for him to go and that nothing could rob him of the
hope of a further life.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 145- 149

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Never again -,” he groaned, leaning on his brother.
“Terrible — I had – already crossed the – threshold.”
“What’s the matter with you, Eusebius?”
“The hunchback -” he cried out. “Two heads – two
children’s heads -.”
And without consciousness he collapsed, saved from a
heavy fall by his brother’s arm. He looked at me helplessly,
spat bloody sputum and stammered:
“Enough, Lord – enough! Have mercy!”
I pressed a large gift into his hand. His poor, gaunt face
beamed with joy for a moment, and then he held out the gold to
the fainting man and shouted:
“Look here, Eusebius – look here!”
He let go of the body of the brother, who twitched softly,
gently let it slide to the ground and pointed to the gap in the
wall of the tent.
“It took a lot out of him this time,” he whispered. “The
day is already coming up. – Was the Lord pleased?”
Full of compassion for these poor people, inwardly
stirred in my innermost being, and yet with a bright glow of
supersensible hope in my chest, I walked through the gray,
rain-soaked morning towards the awakening city.
For a long time I lived quietly and absorbed only in the
memory of happy days in a small, secluded place and thought
to end my life there.
One morning, however, in front of the baker’s shop, a
casserole appeared which became of great importance for me.
A foreign artisan, who had wanted to buy bread, was accused
by the baker of trying to cheat him with fake money, amidst a
large crowd of curious people. The poor fellow, well
acquainted with the cruel punishments that were set for such
misdemeanors, fought back with all his might, when he saw me
coming, cried out with a loud voice:
“Lord, help me! Protect me!”
The people, all of whom knew me and had come to me
for the insignificant good deeds I had done to one person and
another, but especially to the children, held affection for me,
made room for me, and some of them said:
“That’s right! The Lord Baron shall decide whether it is a
gold piece or merely a bad penny, which the lad has put on the
baker’s table.”
I looked at the gold piece. It was a Turkish Zechine like
the five I had kept from the treasure in the ruin. The curly
writing on the coin appeared not only to the baker, but also to
the other people as so nonsensical that they ignored the weight
of the gold, but took it as a false ducat and the fellow for a bag
cutter.
When the people were enlightened and we weighed the
piece on the baker’s gold scales, and for greater certainty tested
it against a stone the poor wandering cloth shearer still had a
number of silver and copper coins change in addition for his
bread. I asked him how he had come into possession of the
coins, which were certainly an extremely rare type of coin. And
then I received an answer, which completely and forever
destroyed my hitherto quiet life like a fiery bolt of lightning.
A nearby stranger had given him the money, said the lad,
and told him to go to this place, where he would learn more.
Half-starved, he was trudging along the street, when a
handsome man with a black cloth around his forehead, had
come towards him. He denied trying to cheat anyone and had
gotten the money from him. Breathlessly I asked whether he
had been dressed like some kind of monk. But the lad
remembered only a black headscarf and the beautiful, dark eyes
of the mild benevolent man. He had turned around and looked
after the stranger, but he had completely disappeared from the
long, straight road.
This information, together with the certainty that the
mysterious man from the Orient was not even three days
journey from here and had shown himself in the flesh, excited
me to such an extent that I ordered a special mail coach for the
next day, to possibly follow his trail, until I would be face to
face with him and find answers to all the questions that had
occupied me for many years, indeed all my life. When I
gathered together money for the journey, I also got hold of the
Turkish zechins. I was amazed and frightened. There were only
four left. A strange feeling came over me, a search for a
memory. But it sank again, and a new mystery remained.
The next day I was already riding merrily along in the
coach and with changed horses had reached the large forest,
late in the afternoon, through which the road led to the village,
not far from the place where the honest cloth shearer had come
to his golden zechine. But just as we passed the village and the
coach driver was merrily singing the “Jäger aus Kurpfalz” on
his horn, the wheel broke and the poor musician was torn off
the seat by the reins wrapped around his left hand by the falling
horse to such an extent that he could only rise with a groan and
with a pained face explained that he needed to put cold
compresses on his sore shoulder before he could hold the reins
again. Also the fallen bay, who had skinned his knee, needed
rest and treatment. If the coach didn’t want to become a wreck
between the village and the town both people and animals
needed to be treated.
Indecisively, I stood in the midst of the astounded village
youth by the badly battered coach, when an old woman came
up to me and said:
“Your quarters are ready, as we were told, and also the
postman can get a bed and a bite to eat. There is room for the
nags in the reverend gentleman’s stable!”
I was very surprised at this reception and asked who had
announced me and whether the whole thing wasn’t a
misunderstanding? There was certainly an inn in the village
where one could stay if necessary.
“No, Herr,” the woman continued and went ahead of me
as a guide without further ado. “We have no inn here, and
strangers of repute whom chance brings here, are accustomed
to stay in the parsonage, which is in the vicarage, which is built
on a large scale and contains enough furnished rooms. The
preparations for the lord, however, have been ordered by the
Reverend. Nothing else is known to me, other than that the
parish priest, who is currently with a dying man, instructed me
to keep a watchful eye on the road and not to miss the
announced guest.”
In the meantime we had arrived at the stately house next
to the church, and I stepped through the door, above which
hung, on iron chains, the bones of extinct animals on iron
chains, into a hallway paved with gray bricks, and from there
into a vaulted, white-painted room, in the middle of which
stood a large table with leather chairs. On the wall was a rack
with many books, among which I noticed the works of
Paracelsus. On top of them were stuffed birds of a rare kind, as
the storm sometimes brings them here from foreign zones, and
all kinds of minerals and fossilized ammonium horns. On the
simple desk by the window was enthroned the figure of a
woman holding a child in her arms, and in my opinion was as
much the mother of our Lord and Savior as a pagan goddess.
Above a black painted prayer stool hung with arms
outstretched, the face of a silent suffering person, the Savior on
the cross.
After a while the old woman put a brass lamp on the
table and the room was filled with a friendly yellow light, the
priest entered almost at the same time.
He was a tall man with gray hair and a face, from which
smart and thoughtful eyes peered out. Friendly, he offered me
his hand, looked at me attentively and asked me to be his guest
at the table. After the meal he wanted to solve for me the riddle
that the knowledge of my arrival had thrown me into. Also the
mail coach driver had already been accommodated and the
carriage was at the blacksmith’s, and the horses, were safe in
the stable.
Immediately, the table was set and the food was served,
which consisted of a larded pike in cream. We drank a light
currant wine with it. When we were finished with the meal the
priest asked if he might be allowed to smoke tobacco, and lit a
pipe.
I must confess that, in spite of the inner calm I had
learned to regard everything that happened as an unchangeable
providence, and a great curiosity seized me, in which way the
clergyman could have been informed of my imminent arrival,
and I requested him to enlighten me about this strange matter,
after my name and state had been pronounced.
“It is indeed, as you say, strange- worthy enough,” he
replied and blew blue smoke in great clouds away from himself.
“Three days ago I went down the village street according to my
habit to pray my breviary.
A couple of people who came toward me astonished me
so much at the sight of them, that I stopped and let them
approach. I knew the woman. It was eighty year old Nenin,
who, in spite of her old age and her weakness at this time of the
day, gathered together a large bundle of brushwood. It had
always been a sight, to see the weak old woman, who was still
active in such a way, swaying under her load. And not
infrequently, I had unceremoniously asked some loitering,
partying lad to take the burden from the poor woman and carry
it home. This time, however, she came without the usual
piggyback and seemed to me upright, almost as if rejuvenated
next to her companion, who, as she said, had voluntarily taken
the burden from her and loaded it effortlessly on his shoulders.
The man, however, with whom she went, had in any case an
appearance that would astonish anyone in this country. Namely
he wore-“
“A brown robe and a black headscarf or a turban of such
color and amber beads around his neck –“, I finished,
quivering with expectation.
The priest looked at me without astonishment and said:
“So then the following miracle partially dissolves into
nothing. I say partially, for it remains wonderful that neither the
old woman nor the tailor who happened to come from the field,
who loaded the bundle of brushwood onto his handcart and
drove Nenin home with it, seemed to see anything special or
conspicuous in the man dressed so strangely. Through later
questions I became convinced that the two people had not even
been aware of the unusual costume. But the other thing, namely
that this man informed me of your arrival and predicted it for
today is now explained by the fact that you obviously know
him and have certainly spoken to him of your journey.”

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 140- 145

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Only one thing stood firm in my heart: the certainty that I
would see Zephyrine again. She and Aglaja, because they were
one and the same creature of God, destined for me and taken
from me again and again for the unknown purposes of eternal
powers.
During the day I had stayed in my inn room and had
answered every disturbance with the indication of indisposition
and the need for rest. In the course of the night, as the hand
approached the eleventh hour, I left the house and took the long
way to the pleasure grove.
The weather was damp and mild, and the spring wind
rattled under the roof tiles and made the weather vanes creak.
The path was dry. A long train of dark clouds chased across the
bright moon, like strange, stretched out running animal shapes.
Once or twice I was stopped by roundabouts or police
check points and was forced to show my papers and to arrange
my answers to the questions in such a way that it could be
inferred that I was on a secret love affair, which would be
unthinkable for a gentleman. In such a way, which caused me
enough displeasure, it was possible for me to get through and
even in the Egyptian darkness under the lanterns blown out by
the storm, ask for further directions from the public. For it was
not at all easy for me in such great darkness, which was
illuminated only at times by the crescent moon, to find the way
to the Lustwäldchen.
There I went astray a few times between the shapeless
tents and booths, which in the powerful darkness looked
completely different than in broad daylight. But the Magus and
his brother seemed to have attentively been on the lookout for
me, because when I, after looking around in vain tried to go in
another direction, a man suddenly stepped up to me, whom I
recognized as the harlequin, grabbed my wrist and said softly
and quickly:
“Come, Baron – we have been waiting for a long time.”
He led me between the darkened wagons and the canvas
tents to a large booth, from the crevices of which a very dim,
bluish light penetrated, opened a slit somewhere on the wall
and gently pushed me in front of him. The next moment I was
standing on the small stage behind the lowered curtain.
In the background still hung the cemetery scene with the
crosses and tombstones from the performance. The sides of the
stage were closed with dark curtains, so that I found myself in
a square of moving walls.
A few oil lamps made of blue glass gave a weak but
immensely pleasant and cold light, in which one saw quite well
after some habituation. I sat down at the invitation of the
brother in a reasonably comfortable chair that had been placed
for me. A copper basin with weakly glowing coals stood before
me. The brother approached me and whispered:
“Don’t speak to him when he comes. -Have you brought
the property of the person you wish to see?”
After some persuasion, I took the silver ring with the fire
opal out of my vest pocket and put it into his hand, and he went
to one of the side curtains, in the folds of which he disappeared.
Immediately he placed a bowl with grains in it next to the coal
fire and a small three-legged stool.
Then the curtain opposite me moved violently, and the
magus appeared. He was clothed in a dark, wide robe and wore
around his head a white cloth, as I had already seen in old
pictures. His face was pale gray and decayed, his eyes half
closed. He did not seem to see me and walked with his hands
stretched out in front of him like a blind man towards the
ember pan. His brother came quickly behind him, guided him
with his hands and pushed him down on the stool. Motionless
the magician remained seated. The brother took one of his
hands hanging down, opened, as it seemed to me, the closed
fingers, and put the ring in his hand, which immediately closed
again. Then he pushed up a similar stool for himself and
scattered grains from the copper bowl over the crackling and
smoldering coals. Immediately a blue, pleasantly fragrant
smoke rose up with a similar fragrance as that precious incense,
used by the Catholic Church on high feast days.
Immobile and without any sign of attention, the magus
sat in front of me and slightly behind him the brother, on whose
haggard and hollow-cheeked face the traces of progressed
pulmonary addiction were easily recognizable as the seal of an
early death. I turned my attention to the other again and now
saw that his eyes were directed at me with a fixed, lusterless
look. At the same time a swelling, melodic humming and
ringing began and I discovered that the brother had a Jew’s
harp between his teeth and was playing it with the index finger
of the right hand keeping the tongue of the instrument in a
constant buzz.
The Magus sat there for the time being in unchanged
posture. Slowly, however, his head sank crookedly against his
right shoulder, and his mouth opened. The hand that held the
ring began to twitch softly. Thus we sat for some time in the
blue light, and the hum and whisper of the music rose and fell.
Suddenly, however, I noticed between the open lips of
the motionless magus something that looked like the end of a
bluish-white, luminous cloth, which gradually began to emerge.
Moreover, it began to throb and knock behind my chair,
and this sound momentarily continued with even greater force
into the wooden floor, to then rise again into the chair, so that I
had to listen several times to the short, sharp blows with the
greatest clarity at my back and involuntarily looked around.
But there was no one behind or beside me, although the
knocking continued with undiminished strength. The white
tissue came out of the mouth of the sleeper almost to his chest
and then disappeared just as quickly as it had come, and the
knocking ceased with a crashing blow in the left armrest of my
armchair. In the deep silence the brother reached past the
magus once again into the incense bowl on the floor and
sprinkled grains on the coals. Something cold touched my
cheek unexpectedly and stroked my forehead. I reached out
quickly, but grabbed the empty air. But on the Magus’s
shoulder a large snow-white hand appeared, with its flat fingers
shaped almost like a glove. But then it stretched in an
excessively long, arm-like gesture over his head, sank down,
and lay quietly for a while like a third arm on his knee, until
everything faded away in a few moments and became invisible.
However, the sleeper now began to become restless, swayed
back and forth with his upper body and let a quiet, wailing
singsong be heard, whose words I could not understand.
It began to knock again very strongly against the floor
and then against my chair, and an empty stool, which stood at
the curtain and which I had overlooked so far, did four or five
frog-like leaps towards me, then turned around, stayed for a
while with its three legs stretched out in the air, and then began
to turn slowly in circles on the seat board. I suspected that
strong magnetic fluids were now active, which had been
obviously lying in deep slumber at the beginning. But at the
same time the trembling melody of the player strengthened and
accelerated, and the so far rocking motions of the magus
changed into violent and convulsive twitching, which seemed
very uncanny, all the more so because the newly nourished
fragrant smoke intensified and the two persons opposite me
appeared quite shadowy and unreal.
Then it seemed to me as if a folded, shimmering piece of
white cloth was lying there next to the charcoal basin, which
had not been there before. It moved in its center in an
incomprehensible way, as if a very small child or an animal
were covered by the linen and caused it to rise. But quickly the
strange cloth or the luminous mist grew in height, became
taller and narrower and seemed to want to take on the shape of
a human being. I looked in the utmost expectation straining to
see and believed to perceive the folds of a garment and limbs.
It was a human figure that arose before me.
And all at once, as if paralyzed by joyful fright, I saw the
completely pale and almost transparent beloved face of
Zephyrine, her eyes were fixed on me – but then something
grew out of the delicate head, from fine threads – glittering and
shining – Aglajas’ crown of the dead –
I wanted to jump up, to wrap my arms around the woman
that I so ardently longed for – But before my eyes veils were
laid, my feet were stuck in leaden shoes, my heart stood still.
Everything had disappeared. I saw only the raw stage
floor, the smoky, sweet smoke, the magus, who had fallen from
the stool with his eyeballs twisted and lay in convulsions. The
music fell silent.
Feet thumped on the flooring. The brother hurriedly
pulled the magus up, ran his cloth-wrapped hand into his
mouth and pulled out his tongue. With a wild gasp the
magician opened his eyes, looked around him and heaved a
sigh.
“Wake up, Eusebius!” cried the brother, shaking him
gently. “Wake up! Wake up!”
The magus looked first at him, then at me, and then let
his gaze go in circles, as if he first had to think about where he
was. He shuddered violently, grabbed his forehead with his
hand, stared at me and gurgled:
“Two–two there were–two–“
The other hurriedly fetched a tin cup and a bottle, poured
a dark, strong-smelling wine into the vessel and held it to the
brother’s lips. He drank in greedy gulps, put it down, and drank
again.
I discovered that my cheeks were wet with tears.
After a long effort, aided by his assistant, the
necromancer stood up and walked swaying toward me. His
face was slack and covered with sweat.
“The ring –” he stammered.
I took the silver jewel and kept it with me.
“Why two?”
He stretched out his hand toward me. It was trembling
violently.
“Why two, Herr?”
I nodded and said softly, “There were two, and yet there
is only one.”

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 135- 139

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

The performance, which began with a few rough slaps
for the harlequin, was as I had much expected with the
magician, dressed as on the figurehead. With his beard hung
around his neck he performed a series of quite artful sleight-of-
hand and card tricks, baked an omelet in a hat, which a fat
citizen hesitantly offered, fetched endless ribbons, white
barnyard rabbits and a glass jar with floating little fishes from
it and finally crushed a golden watch in a mortar, only to find it
unharmed in the purse of an embarrassed giggling girl.
Then he moved on to the more difficult arts and tore off
the heads of a white dove and a black dove and healed them in
the twinkling of an eye, so that the black bird had a white head,
and the white bird now had a black head. But this showpiece
produced such a violent nausea in me that I wanted to get up
and leave the room. But since I would have had to fight my
way through the crowded rows of people sitting and would
have had to make everyone get up, I closed my eyes for a while
until I felt that the discomfort was subsiding.
When I looked up again, through murmurs of applause
and the admiration of the spectators, I saw the well-done
picture of a moonlit cemetery on the stage. A slender, beardless
man, wrapped in a black cloak, walked up and down between
the grave crosses and told in his soliloquy, that a ghost often
appeared here, and that he wanted to find out who the evil doer
was that was certainly behind the appearance of such spirits.
Behind the stage the midnight hour was signaled by
twelve tinkling bells, and after the fading of the last stroke,
which was followed by an artificially generated whirring of the
wind, a being wrapped in white shrouds floated between the
crosses and approached the man. This man seemed to be
frightened at first, but then he swiftly drew his sword and
stabbed the ghost. One saw clearly, how the flashing blade
went through the body of the ghost, without doing him any
harm. But now the boastful one threw the sword away and fled,
whereupon the white creature performed a triumphant dance
and the curtain rushed down. The performance was over, and
the audience departed highly satisfied.
I also stood up and approached the stage. My guess was
correct. The invulnerable apparition was a mirror image,
through a slanting glass plate, in front of which, lying on a kind
of platform, an actor made the ghost, whose image was thrown
onto the stage. The glass plate was made of three equal pieces,
set together, and the two dark, vertical stripes of shadow, which
had been visible on the stage during the performance, had
immediately led me to this assumption.
I now thought of leaving and noticed that there was no
one left in the audience but me. But nevertheless I was not
alone. Inaudibly a person had crept up to me, probably unaware
of my intentions, and even though I faced him so unexpectedly,
I recognized in him the sleight of hand magician in a robe as
well as the cemetery fencer.
I apologized and told him that I only had a scientific
interest in how it was done and was fully satisfied with it. In no
case was it my intention, to retell what I had discovered, which
by the way had been known to me for a long time, to impair his
success.
“The gentleman is obviously a connoisseur,” the man
said very politely and bowed. “Perhaps I have the honor of
seeing a master of white magic before me?”
“Not this one,” I replied. “I only wanted to know whether
the excellent effect produced by the phantom was created with
the help of large concave mirrors or with the sloping glass plate.
Glass plates of such size are, as far as I know very precious and,
as I understand it, are made only in Venice”
“I see that the gentleman is excellently instructed,”
replied the magician. “The three plates are our most valuable
possessions and require a great deal of caution when traveling.”
I thanked him with a few words and went toward the
curtain, in front of which the harlequin was once again making
noise and shouting.
“If, however, the gentleman wished to make use of my
actual art,” said the other, falteringly, and made a gesture with
his hand toward the ground on which we were standing.
A foreboding seized me.
“What you see here,” said the other, “serves only the
curiosity of the uneducated people and the acquisition of the
bare necessities of life. For the deeply initiated, I am the
necromancer Magister Eusebius Wohlgast from Ödenburg, and
I have indeed already been honored with the name of the
Hungarian Dr. Faust. I would have to be very wrong, if the
wishes of the gentleman, whose outward appearance already
announces the deepest and unhealed sorrow, not to offer the
most glowing reunion with a beloved person who had been torn
from him by cruel death.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You think I am more simple-minded than I am, Herr
Magus Wohlgast,” I returned. “With the smoke of poisonous
herbs, which completely cloud the clear mind, and with a
hidden laterna magica, one can show gullible people what they
wish to see.”
The man shook his head with a smile and replied gently
and modestly:
“People of my standing, who live in moving wagons,
must put up with being counted among the great crowd of
wandering jugglers and swindlers. To dispel this suspicion, I
expressly declare to you that I do not claim any salary if you
want to accept my services in this respect. It is entirely up to
you whether or not you want to give me a reward after the
work is done, or under the impression of having been duped, to
refrain from such. I also know very well in whose service I put
my art, and remain unconcerned about profit, as much as I have
to reckon with a net income. Incidentally, I recently enjoyed
the extremely high honor of receiving such a request from His
Imperial Roman Majesty in the rooms of the Masonic Lodge
“To the Three Fires”. Although His Majesty, as a result of a
very gripping apparition which moved him to the other world,
was frightened and had to spend a few days in bed until his
insulted mind had calmed down again. I was granted a very
handsome reward. It may serve as a testimony to you that
neither His Majesty nor the noble gentlemen present regarded
me as an impostor, but rather left the temple of the Freemasons
very moved and in silence. Yes, it was even said to protect me
from the persecution that Her Majesty the Empress ordered to
be instituted against me, when she discovered through an
informant gentleman the cause of the illness of her husband.”
Contradictory feelings stirred in me. The man seemed to
me to be honest and sure of his rare abilities. But my distrust
could not be eliminated so quickly.
“Whom or whose spirit did you make appear before His
Majesty?” I asked.
“To speak of that to anyone, even a trustworthy cavalier,
I am neither permitted, nor is it in my habits,” he declined. “I
would also decline to communicate with third persons about
apparitions which might come to the Lord if my most humble
services were to be called upon.”
My desire to experience this man’s art grew at his words
and I spoke:
“If it would be possible for you to call back a person,
who has departed from this life and is very dear to me, I would
be more than grateful to you.”
He made a dismissive movement.
“That is left to the discretion of the Lord, who is, in spite
of all the negligence of his exterior caused by his grief, is a
distinguished nobleman.”
“So how should I behave, and when should this
summoning go ahead?” I asked quickly, because two people
had already entered the tent and forced us to speak quietly.
“I ask the Lord to be here in three days, half an hour
before midnight. On the day when the work is to take place, the
Lord must abstain absolutely from all food and drink, with the
exception of pure water. Then a purification of the body and
fresh, clean clothes are needed. In addition, an object should be
brought that was the property of the deceased person, if
possible, something that was worn on the body. Strictest
secrecy against anyone, whoever it may be, is a commandment,
the non-observance of which makes all in vain.”
“I have understood and will observe all this,” I said.
“Nothing else is required?”
“Nothing more for the gentleman.”
“And you?”
“I, my lord, must fast from today, a full three days, fast.
My brother and our assistant will hold the performance here. I
must prepare myself in solitude until the hour of the
invocation.”
I looked at him doubtfully, but the place was so filled to
such an extent that further conversation was not possible. The
Hungarian Magus did not pay any further attention to me, but
walked right away toward the curtain. I saw him speaking
some hasty words with the colorfully dressed harlequin, who
nodded seriously.
“So in three days -” I said in passing.
“Around midnight,” he replied, and disappeared into the
crowd in front of the booth.
When I deliberately passed by after a while, the harlequin
had disappeared, and the man, who until then had attracted the
public with his multicolored costume, was now standing in the
robe in front of the entrance and invited the audience to enter.
In deep thought, I started on my way home to my inn.
God himself had annealed my soul in the furnace of pain.
I felt it deeply in the loneliness of the day, on which I prepared
myself fasting for the evening with the Magus. How different
my whole being had become since that hour, when my beloved
had slipped away into the realm of shadows. The old
irascibility which had still sometimes flashed up in me, the
arrogance, of which I often enough made myself guilty, the
addiction to the pleasures of the table and diversions of various
kinds, the tendency to lust – all this had fallen away from me
and seemed to me void and stale. The glamour, with which life
presents itself to a man, was extinguished for me under the
gray dust of transience.

Read Full Post »

Anarchist Knight Apprentice: Chapter 25 My Parents are Dying!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Chapter 25 “My parents are dying!”

“If I had to say where I thought the problem was, I’d say it was in having us train six newbies before moving on. We could probably get by with training four or five instead.”

Then Tobal grinned at Zee and Kevin. “Still, that’s because we are good trainers. There are some people out here that still struggle to survive after two years. I would hate to train with them. I guess the bottom line is if you can survive out here for a year you must know what you are doing.”

“You have always done a good job training newbies,” Zee told him. “No one has ever complained about your training.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever complained about Becca, Fiona or Nikki either,” he reminded her. “I guess the best thing is to trust the Council of Elders to make these decisions for us.” He looked at Zee, “I have heard you are the most thorough trainer out here. You teach things many of us don’t even think about.”

She blushed and looked pleased. “Thank you Tobal. That was a very nice thing to say.”

Kevin nodded and gave her a squeeze. “We’d better get going. I want to get out of this rain.”

They laughed and with a final wave headed toward one of the shelters. Sarah’s, Anne’s, Derdre’s, Seth’s and Crow’s newbies were all going to be initiated along with Zee’s, Kevin’s, Fiona’s, Becca’s and Nikki’s. That was ten initiations and it was going to be a long night Tobal thought as he watched and listened to the Council of Elders.

Crow had proclaimed his newbie ready to solo but the Elders had not approved demanding one more month of training. Crow was pretty upset at this and it took quite a while before he was calmed down. He felt he was being picked on because he was so young and from the village. Tobal felt Crow had gotten a bad break and sympathized with him. Still it was true. No one else really knew him yet.

At circle Llana made quite an impression with her wolf cubs. She strolled in with the two cubs trailing at her heels. Tobal had not even been sure she would show up or that he would get his chevron. He hadn’t seen her since she had left to give her grandfather the message. The cubs were nervous and kept very close to her. He was glad to see her for several different reasons.

Tobal was officially recognized and given his 6th chevron along with the secret location where he was to be initiated into the 2nd degree in two weeks during the new moon. As soon as he could he moved over to where Llana was tying the cubs to a tree and kneeled down to scratch one of the pups behind the ears and smiled as it recognized him.

“Is your grandfather ok?” He asked.

She smiled, “Hi Tobal” and gave him a kiss and a hug. “Grandfather is doing fine. He was very excited to hear about Adam Gardener, Sarah’s father, and agreed that Adam was in serious danger so he left right away to talk with him.”

Then her face got very serious. “Someone broke into the store while they were talking and they needed to teleport out to escape. Neither one of them has been back to the store since. That was how close it was. They didn’t see who it was but they are assuming it was some of General Grant’s men. They also believe it is too dangerous to go back.”

She looked at him. “I gave your wand to grandfather since I thought he might need it. I hope that is ok?”

Tobal nodded, “I couldn’t take it with me to the Journeyman place anyway. It would not be safe there. Someone might discover it.”

“Tobal,” she said. “There has been a change in my plans. Grandfather and Adam have agreed to train both Crow and me in time travel to the locations that are open to us. We feel it is better to have four of us able to time travel than just two in case something happens to one of us.”

He swallowed a bitter lump in his throat. “That means you are going to quit the program?”

She nodded quietly. “We’re counting on you to stay in the program. I can meet you once or twice a month and continue your training so you will be ready to time travel as soon as possible. Without med-alert bracelets we will have much more freedom to come and go and meet with people.”

“How soon will that be,” he said in despair. “How soon will I be able to time travel?”

She sensed his disappointment and put her right hand gently on his shoulder. “You have learned a lot,” she told him quietly. “But there is still a lot to learn. Perhaps by the time you are a medic you will be ready. The ability to teleport is the key to the entire process. When you have learned how to do that you will be ready. In the meantime you will continue within the program itself. As Ron and Rachel’s son they will be watching you in the hopes that you will have the same abilities that your parents did. They will allow you to have as much training as possible before they attempt to use you. It is almost certain you will be chosen to be trained for Federation time travel.”

“Do I need to join those people?”

“We need to know exactly where your parents are kept if we are going to help them,” she reminded him. “We will also need someone on the inside that knows their way around. Crow is going to start training a group to teleport and time travel at the village. I am going to be working with you and your group.”

“Your group?” He asked puzzled.

“Yes, your group,” she smiled. “You didn’t think you were going to be doing this alone did you?”

“Well, kind of,” he admitted.

“As you continue through the training you will meet people you trust and become friends with,” she told him. “ Some of them will be chosen to continue on within the time travel program. If you and I also teach them the teleportation process in secret they will test well enough to be chosen. Your group can then infiltrate the organization.”

“How long will all of this take,” he said in despair. “My parents are dying!”

“Your parents have been dying for twenty years,” she said softly. “ They will stay alive as long as they know we are coming. They have told me that. We will need between one and two years to get your group trained and ready. That means you will all be medics by then.”

“When will I be able to talk with my parents like you and Crow do? I mean when I’m not at circle or astral projecting to the cave I can’t reach them.”

“That should start happening soon,” she told him. “Your coming initiation should assist in that process. In the meantime keep practicing your meditations and astral projection exercises. And remember, you can talk to your parents and learn from them already. Ask them what you should do.”

“You said we will continue meeting each month,” Tobal said. “When and where will we meet next?”

“Let’s meet in the morning three days after every circle at your base camp,” she decided. “That will work for starters. Later we can find a better location if we want to.”

They left it at that and he noticed Llana and the wolf cubs were gone shortly after that. She didn’t stay for circle or to talk with any of the others. He realized she had come just to talk with him and to make sure he got his sixth chevron.

Even with ten initiations there was a shortage of newbies and Tobal noticed that several clansmen including Tyrone, Mike and Butch were not at circle. They were presumably waiting at sanctuary for more newbies and had been waiting the entire month. Tempers were flaring around the newbie situation.

Mike was angry and so were Tara and Nick who decided to just stay together for the month. Wayne and Char didn’t really care and were back together. There were five other clansmen really angry about the newbie situation. It had reached the point where four Apprentices simply left for the coast. That was more than the monthly one or two that normally elected to drop out of the program.

Tobal had been doing some heavy thinking about the newbie situation and realized that most of the problems were because Nikki, Fiona, Becca and himself had all trained newbies within a month and created a bottleneck situation with the newbies. They were getting their training too fast. There had been a problem when Rafe was training newbies one a month but this was far worse since Rafe was just one person. Now there were several people training that fast. Tobal decided to talk to Ellen about it after circle that evening.

Angel was High Priestess for the circle and Tobal noticed Dirk was acting High Priest for the first time. He was closely monitored by the old High Priest but went through the entire ritual himself. Tobal thought he had done a good job. He could feel the Lord and Lady during each of the initiations but was not able to contact them. It seemed they were focused entirely on the initiates for some reason.

The ten initiations took a long time and he missed chatting with Becca and the others. He did sit beside Ellen though and asked her about making all the training two months long for everyone.

She turned an amused eye toward him, “The Council of Elders has already discussed that in depth. We decided if a newbie is properly trained and ready to solo we have no right to prevent them. If some people can do the training within a month they have the right to do so. If some trainers are motivated to move through the ranks more quickly than others they should be allowed to do that also.”

“But what about all the bad feelings among the clansmen?” He asked. “What about the shortage of newbies?”

Ellen sighed, “Fiona, Becca and Nikki are the only ones left that are training newbies that quickly. They are trying to get their last newbies right now. No one else is trying to train that fast and the problem will go away when they become Journeymen. It is not right to punish them for being good trainers. We did not punish you or Rafe.”

“All in all,” she continued. “It is an effective system and we are inclined to keep things the way they are.”

Tobal nodded and changed the subject as Rafe sat down and joined them at one of the pauses between initiations.

“So what has been happening with the City Council this past month?”

“Not much,” Ellen replied. “Last month’s meeting was cancelled. The mayor contacted us and said they were not ready for a meeting yet. The mayor had dark circles under his eyes and looked a lot older than I remembered. This must be pretty hard on him.”

Tobal changed the subject. “Rafe, you have an air sled now?”

Rafe was wearing his red Master’s robe for the first time to circle. “It’s over there.” He pointed to a location slightly outside of the gathering spot. “I’m still not sure how fast it will go.” He chuckled and glanced at Ellen.

She looked at Rafe with a concerned look. “It’s not a toy Rafe. There have been several air sled deaths.”

He pouted, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take me so serious. Besides,” he continued glumly, “They watch us like a hawk. I can’t get away with anything.”

He brightened a bit. “But I am going to check out some of those forbidden areas that are marked on this map though. Maybe I will have something interesting to add by next month.”

Tobal had almost forgotten the map of forbidden locations Rafe had gotten from Ellen several months ago. Without an air sled Rafe had not been able to check any of them out.

Ellen protested, “Rafe, I don’t really think you should be doing things like that right now. Things are getting dangerous and we don’t really know what we are up against.”

“Checking out these forbidden locations is one way of finding out what we are up against,” was Rafe’s stubborn reply.

“I’ve got an idea,” Tobal said suddenly.

Then he explained the situation with Crow and Llana and how Crow was going to take one group and start training them to teleport and be time travelers while Llana’s group would remain within the system but receive the same training.

“Count me in,” Rafe said.

“Me too,” was Ellen’s reply.

“Good,” said Tobal. “I will tell Llana to start meeting with each of you and training you in what you need to know. She won’t be wearing a med-alert bracelet anymore and can meet you just about anywhere you decide. She won’t show up on any of the monitors.”

He looked at Rafe. “You could even take her by air sled and drop her off at some of those forbidden locations and let her check them out. Then she could teleport out with the information about the area. I think she can only teleport to a place she has been before but once she knows where it is she would be able to go back when ever she wanted.”

Ellen and Rafe looked at Tobal and at each other and nodded. It seemed like a fairly good plan. They would be waiting for Llana to contact them. In the meantime Tobal would set things up with Llana and get his Journeyman initiation.

Both Ellen and Rafe said they were going to be at his Journeyman initiation. He had almost forgotten about it. The secret location turned out to be a cave. Tobal hadn’t realized there were so many caves in the area. He scouted the area ahead of time looking for trails that led into it. He found a safe hiding spot for the things that belonged to his parents and left them in a bundle to pick up later after his initiation.

Finally satisfied that he knew where he was supposed to go he went into the camp itself. No one had said anything about coming early and the late spring weather made travelling a bit uncertain. He felt it was better to show up early than to show up late. It was only a few hours early and they would be expecting him.

He decided the best course of action was to stay on the path and make no sudden moves remembering what had happened with Fiona. It turned out he didn’t need to be so cautious. Turning a corner in the path were two guards standing in the middle of the path as a roadblock. They had a small fire going and there was a lived in occupied look that made Tobal suspect this camp was always guarded.

They greeted him warmly and one guard remained on the trail while he was escorted to a chamber and told to wait. After about an hour of silence someone came for him and again his guide was female. This time it was a girl Tobal knew as Lea dressed in a black robe and hood that covered her honey colored hair.

“Do you seek the Light and Wisdom of our secret circle,” she asked as she approached him in the darkness.

“Yes, I do.”

“There is no Light for you here. In the Apprentice degree you have received all of our light. What you need now is more darkness so the Light within you can shine forth more brightly. That is how you will attain the wisdom of our circle. Will you permit me to be your guide into the darkness?” She asked.

Tobal was surprised and a little shaken by this and wondered what he was getting himself into but he remembered Rafe and knew it couldn’t be too bad.

“I will permit you to be my guide,” he told her.

“You must leave everything behind if you are to enter this degree,” she told him. Then she told him to strip completely. She fastened a large blindfold around his eyes so he couldn’t see anything and taking his left hand led him further into the cave. In the other hand she carried a burning torch. Tobal sensed the light from the torch but couldn’t see anything through the fabric of the blindfold. His guide led him for some way and then stopped. A bundle of clothing was pressed into his hands and he was told to dress himself.

“Are you willing to receive the darkness,” she asked him?

“Yes.”

“What are the two passwords into our sacred circle, she asked.

“Perfect love and perfect trust,” he replied.

“No, in this degree these are reversed. In this degree you must have perfect trust to find perfect love. In this degree we study the duality of opposites inherent in all of nature. Think upon these things as you wait on my return.”

She told him to sit down where he was and took his blind fold off. As his eyes adjusted to the glare of the torch she told him it was very important he stay where he was because the cave was large and he could get lost or killed if he wandered away in the darkness without knowing where he was going. She was going to go and see if things were ready for the initiation. In the meantime he was to quietly meditate and prepare himself.

She turned and left him sitting in the darkness. As he watched the torch grew smaller in the distance and then disappeared altogether as she turned a corner. He had never experienced such total darkness and it was unnerving. For a moment he fought the impulse to get up and run after her remembering what had happened with Fiona. In the darkness the rock and earthy feeling of the cave seemed to close in on him and press against his ribs making it hard to breathe.

There was a sound in the darkness behind him and a bolt of panic and fear tried to tear itself loose and gain control over him. It took a massive effort of will to fight the feelings back. He began concentrating on his breathing and centering as Crow had taught him. He deliberately pulled the earth energy up from the ground and from all around him and encircled himself with it and called on the Lord and Lady to be there with him.

In the blackness of the cave he began to see glowing lights and couldn’t tell if he was seeing them with his physical eyes or in his mind’s eye. There simply was not any way of knowing if they were figments of his imagination or if they were real. He wanted to believe they were real but whenever he tried to focus and look at them directly they would disappear. This continued for some time.

He could feel his heart beating and pulsing in his throat and arms and in his heart itself. It was a slow steady rhythm that seemed to comfort and protect him. It seemed like hours had passed and he wondered if he had been forgotten but was not particularly worried. He had found his center and surrounded himself with protection. Then he heard someone coming and saw the faint gleams of light from the torch.

The light blinded his eyes as Lea came up to him and told him they were ready. She handed a second torch to him and lit it.

“You carry your own light into our circle.” She told him. “In the Apprentice degree there were two passwords. What were they?”

“Perfect love and perfect trust.” He replied.

“And what are the passwords into the Journeyman degree?”

“Perfect trust and perfect love.” He replied.

“Remember these passwords.” She said. “You will need them to gain entry into our sacred circle.”

As Tobal was led deeper into the cave it opened into an enormous cavern. Torches had been placed around at various points for lighting and there was no large fire in the center of the cave. The smoke from the torches rose and lost itself high in the vaulted ceiling finding escape through some hidden airway. Four small fires marked the four quarters of the circle at a smooth and level spot in the cavern floor.

A circle had been formed by dark hooded figures standing silently waiting for him. The High Priest and High Priestess were dressed in red robes with large hoods that hid their faces. Looking at them, Tobal couldn’t make out who they were. The hooded figures around the circle looked eerie in the flickering torchlight. He was halted at the edge of the circle.

Lea pulled him forward. “An Apprentice is among us proven by the elements of nature and of the earth. He wishes to join his light with our own so our community might be more illumined and our wisdom grow. He further wishes to follow the ancient craft and learn the ways of our sacred circle.”

The High Priest came over and stood in front of Tobal staring intently into his eyes.

“I must remind you that this is not a matter to be lightly taken. Your immortal soul will be deeply committed to the path of the Lord and Lady. Do you desire to have your destiny joined with theirs?”

“I do.”

“Do you seek the way that reaches beyond life and death? Will you serve the Lord and reverence the Lady? Will you keep secret from the unworthy that which we show you?”

Tobal replied affirmatively to each of these questions in turn.

“So be it. Child of Earth enter the path of darkness.” Stepping back he motioned for Tobal to walk in front of him into the circle. But his guide quickly restrained him.

“You can’t enter our sacred circle unpurified.” She said. Then taking a bowl of water from the High Priest she sprinkled him with it.

“I purify you with water.”

She waved the torch over him, in front of him and behind him.

“I purify you with fire.”

Then the High Priest stepped forward once more.

“There are two passwords that will allow you to enter our sacred circle. What are they?”

Tobal replied, “Perfect trust and perfect love.”

“Then lead us with your light into the greater darkness.” Said the High Priest. “Show us the way.”

Tobal’s guide tugged him widdershins toward the North quarter and Tobal led the silent party to the small fire signifying the North quarter. He stood silently before the fire wondering what to do for several minutes as they bowed respectfully and waited. The cave’s chill seeped into his bones, stirring echoes of the altar’s glow from his astral visits, a faint reassurance in the void. Then he felt his guide nudging him toward the west and he led the party to the quarter of the circle representing west and water. As before they remained standing silent before the watchtower with bowed heads. Again his guide nudged him forward toward the south.

After paying homage to the watchtower of the south Tobal led them to the Watchtower of the East where the process was repeated. Then Tobal was nudged by his guide to continue widdershins until they arrived at the entrance path into the circle itself. The High Priest roared out in anger.

“Seize Him!”

Taking his knife the High Priest pressed it against Tobal’s chest and cried out in anger.

“We trusted you and you have only led us in a large circle. We have arrived back at the beginning. Why have you done this to us?”

Tobal had no answer to give and his guide remained silent.

Read Full Post »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 130- 134

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Enter and make the sacrifice, of concealing your own
pain, so that the dying may fall asleep without a soul martyr.”
I felt a burning pain that took my breath, clenched my
teeth and went slowly into the next room. Through the veil of
tears that, despite all my intentions, inexorably ran from my
eyes, I saw a small table, with a bloodstained sheet that
covered, something lying there, the mere outlines of which sent
horror through my nerves. Then I stepped up to the bed and
knelt down.
Zephyrine opened her eyes with great effort. Her face
was white as snow; her lips were torn by her own teeth. I
grasped her hand, light and cool as a rose petal, and pressed it
to my heart. Then she smiled. Whispering, her lips moved.
“It -is- a – little – son – as I – asked for it – from heaven –
and for me a little vixen -a little Aglaja- Later may I see the
children – ?”
The doctor, who was standing on the other side of the
bed beckoned to me, “Yes.”
“Certainly, dearest -as soon as you are asleep,” I said,
thinking that my heart must burst. But suddenly fear entered
her gaze. She tried to straighten up, but fell back powerlessly.
“Or – must- I- die?”
“Zephyrine!” I cried and covered her hand with kisses.
“Don’t talk like that -you sin. Everything is fine. Only you must
sleep, rest and gain new strength after what you have suffered.”
“I – have suffered it – gladly – for you-and for me,” she
smiled. “I am so -joyful- that I -may- stay -with- you.”
Her hand pulled -me- closer- with a strange strength.
“But I want- your face – to stay – close – to – me.”
I drew as close to her as I could. Her tired eyes suddenly
widened, fastened on me with an expression of thirsty desire,
held me tightly – her gaze remained staring deep into my eyes.
I sat like that for a long time.
Then someone stepped behind me and touched my arm.
It was the doctor.
“You have held your own, poor Herr Baron. She crossed
over easily and blissfully.”
And only then I saw that on Zephyrine’s angelic face was
the holy radiance of eternity.
I could not cry, could not think.
Aglaja lay before me. White and beautiful, as I carried
her image in my heart.
Was the bell still ringing? Or was it the raging blood that
hummed in my ears?
“Do you feel strong enough to look at the cause of
death?” the doctor pulled me out of my brooding.
It was all so indifferent now that she was dead.
But the sight that now came to me was so terrible that it
forced a sobbing cry from me. I drew back and barely felt it
when my head hit the door jamb. A small well-formed torso lay
there. And this small body carried on the shoulders two necks,
and on the necks sat two heads.
One of them had fine, dark hair, the other one golden red
curls.
“Moreover, this strange monster was a true
hermaphrodite, man and woman at the same time -“
I fought back, ran past the crying midwife into the other
room, threw myself over the table, and a dry sob choked my
throat.
The doctor sat down silently next to me and waited.
When I had regained my composure I told him about the
drops that that wretch had talked us into and which I had left
undestroyed in recklessness.
Doctor Hosp thought for a long time and then said:
“I remember having heard once, that an Italian doctor
had succeeded by certain poisons to produce monstrous
deformities of the fruit in pregnant women. But it seems to me
not very credible, that such interventions in the most secret
workshop of nature -“
A terrible thought rose in me.
Without caring any more about the doctor, without
listening to his anxious questions about what I was going to do
next. I tore open the door of the weapons cabinet, took out a
double barreled pistol, tore my hat and coat from the hook and
rushed out into the snowfall.
Just as I stepped out of the garden, a carriage drove
slowly by.
I shouted to the driver to take me to the Fassl house as
fast as the horses could run. He looked at me stupidly. I took
several gold pieces, pressed them into his hand. He pulled his
hat, the blow worked. The whip whistled, the horses leaped out.
When I came to, I was standing in the half-dark hallway
of the house. Someone was rubbing me over the face with a
wet sponge that smelled of lavender vinegar.
Only one word droned in my head, “- Gone -“
“Yes, Herr, you must believe me,” said a stolid woman.
“Thank God that the crook is gone. Already two months ago he
left in the night and fog, and his things have been taken away
by the court.”
I heard something else about a young girl who had died
after a forbidden operation that Postremo had performed.
Gone!
I let out a maniacal laugh.
I was taken to the waiting carriage, and I left.
The snow swirled, the wind whistled through the open
windows. The houses moved with night-blind windows. She
was dead, she was dead!
Never again —.
I was only an empty shell, clothes draped on a soulless
body. I ate now and then, fell asleep on chairs, and found
myself dressed in bed. My eyes were inflamed, my clothes,
which I never changed, unclean and damaged. I did not know
the time of neither day, felt neither heat nor cold and let my
people do as they pleased. Sometimes burning longing ate at
me, and I ran restlessly through the rooms and the garden
sobbing, calling Zephyrine’s name, calling her Aglaja, too, to
lure her back. For days I sat at her grave, until the gravediggers
kindly reminded me that the gates were closed. And to my
consolation they showed me the corner where the
unconsecrated ground was, a little under which lay my wife’s
favorite dog, Amando.
Amando, who had come to her last resting place, would
not leave, had refused food and drink and had died of grief and
hunger.
When I began to feel the healing effect of time, I sent for
a notary public and gave the house and garden, along with a
sufficient sum to a foundation for crippled children, who from
birth had to carry miserable and deformed bodies from birth. I
myself moved into the large inn “Golden Lamb” and made my
departure from the city, where everything pained me; since I
was reminded by everything and everyone, that just a short
while ago Zephyrine’s eyes had rested on it.
From her I had kept only a little tuft of her hair and the
silver ring with the fire opal, which first Aglaja and then she
had worn. Her fingers had been as slender and fine as those of
my cousin. The little curl of Zephyrine’s, however, mixed so
much with Aglaja’s in Muhme’s pale blue box, that one could
no longer distinguish and separate them.
I wanted to go to a foreign country. Just far away from
here. When I walked haphazardly through the streets I often
noticed that I bumped into people and they looked at me
strangely. Ordinary people in their unconcerned way probably
pointed at their own foreheads and laughed. All this did not
touch me in any way.
So, wandering aimlessly outside the city, I came to a
place called Lustwäldchen. There it was taken care of that the
attention of the people remained active. Nobody cared about
my behavior, which, even unconscious to myself, was certainly
conspicuous enough by nervous twitches in the face and other
consequences of my mental suffering. Here there were various
booths and huts, dancing bears, cake bakers, fortune tellers,
canvas theaters, plus vendors and all kinds of market criers.
Boys and girls frolicked together in a circle on blue and white
or yellow and red painted wooden horses to the sound of music.
I passed tents from which came the false cries of
trumpets and the sound of drums. A sword swallower in tinsel
trousers stood with his neck bent back in a circle of gawkers,
and next to him dirty hands were fishing pickles out of a barrel.
And in the midst of the swarm I saw – like an unreal
apparition – Laurette on the arm of a tall, lean man with a
brown face. She wanted to pour out with laughter at the crude
and mean jokes of a buffoon, who pulled off his pants on a
podium and showed a hairy devil’s butt. Two southern servants
in dark livery stood behind the couple. Laurette did not see me.
I walked on, ignoring the fatigue of my feet, and then
stopped in front of a large booth on which a painting on canvas
captivated me. In front of a smoking fire stood an old wizard
with pointed cap, and a ribbon with the signs of the zodiac
slung around his shoulder and hips. His left hand was buried in
his white beard; the right held a small staff toward the smoke,
in which a figure wrapped in a white veil, with closed eyes
appeared dimly. Under this not completely artless image, but
nevertheless in screaming colors, the following was written to
read:
“The famous necromancer, magician and magister of the
seven liberal arts Arkadius Chrysopompus from Ödenburg,
called the Hungarian Doctor Faust.”
A colorful harlequin, who just a moment ago was playing
the tinkling sounds of a Savoyard lyre was now sounding a
brass horn, inviting the audience with all kinds of joking,
contorted gestures and loud shouting to visit the performance
that was about to begin. Two grenadiers in white coats, who
had colorfully dressed, busty girls on their arms, were the first
to enter. Then went a few citizens with their wives and some
young people of both sexes went up the three steps, paid a
pittance and pushed their way through the red curtain, which
the crier lifted. For some reason I followed and soon sat in the
midst of the people on a bench in front of the small, dimly lit
stage.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »